


Marian's Farm

by ElegantButler



Category: Max Headroom (TV)
Genre: Gen, Spin-Off Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-07-18 06:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16112396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElegantButler/pseuds/ElegantButler
Summary: Thirteen years after the events in Max Headroom the Next Generation, Marian has grown up on the farm belonging to the family of the woman whom Bryce handed her off to at the conclusion of that story.





	1. Chapter 1

Max Headroom - The Next Generation

Episode 1:

Marian’s Farm

 

The sun waited just below the mountains that rose up in the distance just beyond the farmlands. The last few stars did their best to make themselves seen. And Venus gave a final shimmer as its light was swallowed up by the first rays of sunshine.

 

In a short time, it would finish it’s climb to the peaks and beyond. Then the rooster would crow. The rooster, which was called Lancelot, would awaken the family as its ancestors had of yore. And so would begin the day on this farm as on all others in the town of New Peace.

 

In one of the farmhouses, Marian turned over and continued to dream about a boy she had never met. He was about nineteen. Only three years older than she was. But it was not what her mother called a heart dream. Marian had dreamed of him from time to time since she was a little girl. She didn’t know his name. All he ever told her was “Good luck”, so she had taken to calling him the Luck Boy.

 

For some reason, this made her grandmother sad.

 

Marian lived with her mother, grandmother, and grandfather, along with a twenty-four year old farmhand named Aaron who slept in a hammock in the barn.

 

Her mother, Sara, made breakfast every morning. Fresh eggs, bacon and toast with tomato slices. It was always delicious and everyone ate hearty knowing they had a long morning’s work ahead of them.

 

The farm Marian lived and worked on was a livestock farm. And that meant spending each day looking after the many animals. Cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens. Each animal had its particular need, and it was up to Marian to attend to some of these chores.

 

After breakfast, before heading off to school, she put on her overalls and went to milk the cow and bring in the day’s eggs from the chicken coop, if there were any.

 

When she got home from school, she would set her homework on the end table and go out to help Aaron finish weeding the crops. That usually didn’t end until around dinner time, so she didn’t have a lot of time to spend with her friends after school.

 

“Mom,” she asked during dinner one night, “can I go out with Sue and Becky to the movies on Saturday?”

 

Her mother shook her head.

 

“Pass the squash, dear,” she requested. “We’ve got the livestock show this Saturday. We need you to help us with the chickens. You know how rambunctious that brown one can be.”

“What about Saturday after the livestock show?” Marian suggested. “I’ll be home before dark.”

 

“I’m afraid not.”  

 

Sara Smith loved the child and wanted her to be happy. But the farm was also important to her. She wanted it to be there for Marian when she grew up. She planned to pass it along to the girl when she was old enough to run it herself.  Sara had grown up on the streets as a child when New Peace had still been Palmerston North, evicted from her house when her single mother had died.

 

At the age of nineteen, she had met a man about nine years her senior. He had offered her food and shelter in exchange for working on his farm for a few days. Uneducated past her freshman year in high school and therefore unemployable by current standards, she had gratefully accepted the offer.

 

Sara found she enjoyed working on his farm. She loved the chickens, especially, and laughed when they chased her around, trying to peck her.

 

Mark Hall, that was the farmer’s name, was of the opinion that she was an excellent worker with the right attitude and ethics for farming. He had decided to keep her around a little while longer. After all, he could use help when it was time to reap that year’s harvest.

 

Sara became Sara Hall a year later, but though they had thought about having children, it never happened.

 

Marian had come into Sara’s life unexpectedly when her mother-in-law Ruby had brought her home from London one day.

 

At the age of two, Marian had been frightened. Her teen father had been trying to flee the country with her during a time when England had been subjected to the schemes of a sinister corporation with plans to make itself a dominating enterprise. The boy had not made it onto the plane himself. None of them had ever found out what had happened to him.  They assumed he had been taken to one of the corporate facilities to be processed.

 

The corporation, Zik Zak, had fallen a few years later. Their brainwashing had worked too well. Millions of children had grown up to buy nothing but Zik Zak products. And not everyone could work for Zik Zak. There just weren’t that many jobs. Soon, there were so many people on the dole who couldn’t afford their products that Zik Zak itself soon closed its shops forever.

 

Now, eight years after the fall of Zik Zak, people had learned to sew their own clothes and farm their own food. They traded and sold at market stalls, and while things were no longer easy, life was good to them.

 

Marian was now sixteen. She had gone from a scared child to a confident young farmgirl.

Sara smiled sadly at her.

 

“Tell you what,” she told her. “You can go to the movies next weekend.”

 

“The movie I wanted to see will be over by then,” Marian explained. “But that’s okay. The farm is more important. The potatoes are excellent again.”

 

“Tell your grandma,” Sara said. “She made those.”

 

“Great potatoes, Gramma Ruby,” Marian told her, cheerfully.

 

Ruby Hall smiled at Marian. “You helped to grow them, so thank you, too.” she replied with a smile.

 

“I saw Luck Boy in my dream again last night,” Marian told her.

 

Sara frowned.

 

“Gramma, why does mom look so sad when I talk about him?

 

Sara made a stern face.

 

“It’s a long story,” Ruby said. “Not one for the dinner table. Maybe I’ll tell you on Sunday. Now, as it looks like we’ve all finished eating, why don’t you help me clear the table? I’ve made a nice apple pie for dessert. I’ve had it cooling on the window sill all afternoon.”

 

Sara’s and Marian’s faces brightened at this. Old fashioned window sill cooled pie was a family favorite. Especially Grandma Ruby’s apple pie.

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

###  CHAPTER TWO:

 

The technology of the world, long-forgotten, sat beneath the towns that had once been cities. Sat there, unused, unattended, unlinked. Computers that once held the identities of everyone, and which had once turned on the morning showers and coffee percolators, now sat dead on the desks, the electricity that had once powered them long since shut down. Their batteries drained. And the TVs which had once been the babysitters of the world as well as their primary source of information before the Great Upheaval, hung from walls or stood upon large stands, just as dead as the computers.

 

One single TV remained on. Unlinked, but not blank, it displayed a single image, a blond head which occasionally let out a ridiculous approximation of a snore and twitched slightly before dozing off again.

 

As she helped her mother and grandparents get the livestock from their farm onto the back of the truck for the fair, Marian was just as unaware of what slept beneath her as everyone else.

 

“Come on, Lancelot,” she told the rooster as she finally caught him and settled him into his cage. “Time to go and show everyone how nice you look.”

 

As soon as the rooster was on the truck, Marian got into her mother’s old car which followed the truck which was being driven by her grandfather.

 

“He’ll be too old to drive soon,” Sara told Marian. “I think it’s time you learned so that you can take over. Then he can ride with me and you can drive your grandma.”

 

Marian wasn’t listening, however. Her mind was once again on Luck Boy. Her grandma had promised to tell her more about him on Sunday. 

 

Tomorrow.

 


	3. Chapter 3

###  Chapter Three

 

“I don't see why you want to drag up the past,” Sara told her mother-in-law. “Marian is happy. Why can't you leave it like that?”

 

“Sara, dear,” Ruby replied. “You can’t keep it from her forever. She’ll find out one day.”

 

“Then let me tell her when I’m ready,” Sara implored.

 

“And what if that day never comes,” Ruby suggested. “Then what?”

 

Marian walked into the room. She had been out feeding the chickens and one of her ankles was pecked and bleeding just a little.

 

“Looks like one of them got you,” Ruby observed.

 

“Gertie,” Marian said. “I think she’s got it in for me.”

 

“Well, wash it up and put a bandaid on it. Then come back and I’ll tell you the tale of your Luck Boy.”

 

“I really wish you wouldn’t do this,” Sara said. “But if you must, I want to be here, too.”

 

Marian returned a moment later with a small circular bandage on her pecked ankle. She had changed out of her work clothes and washed her face and hands.

 

“Sit down,” her grandmother offered.

 

Marian sat on the simple sofa and turned to Ruby.

 

“You last saw him when you were only about two years old,” Grandma Ruby explained. “When you first came to us.”

 

“I’m adopted?” Marian asked.

 

“No,” Sara said. “You were at risk of being taken by a corporation called Zik Zak. We couldn’t put you back in the system or you might have been deported back to England and placed into one of their brainwashing schools. But we’ve loved you since then all the same.”

 

Satisfied with this explanation, Marian turned to her grandmother. Even now that she knew the truth, she couldn’t think of the woman as anybody other than Gramma Ruby.

 

“So was Luck Boy my father, then?” she guessed.

 

“He was protecting you and trying to get you to safety when the Zik Zak people caught him,” Ruby explained. “I was the one he handed you off to.”

 

“He just handed me to a stranger,” Marian was not impressed.

 

“If he hadn’t, you would have grown up brainwashed in Zik Zak’s facilities,” Sara told her. “He did what he had to do to save you from that.”

 

“What was his name?” Marian wanted to know.

 

“We never found out,” Ruby replied. “He was taken seconds after he gave you to me. The door to the plane closed before he could get through. Whether he’s alive or not, I honestly don’t know.”

 

“He saved my life,” Marian considered.

 

Her grandmother nodded sadly.

 

“Then I should try to save his,” Marian decided.

  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

###  Chapter Four:

 

Marian’s friend Sue waved to her as she sat in the school library. She was holding a book in her hand. Books had made a comeback following the downfall of technology, revealing long-hidden secrets. Recipes for old foods, sewing patterns, and old farmer’s almanacs were among many of the useful items found in the old bound pages.

 

“Look at this,” Sue said, setting the book down opened to a page with a picture on it.

 

“What is it?” Marian asked.

 

“Old architecture,” Sue said, offhandedly. “But look at this house. It’s got a level under the ground.”

 

“Who would build a room underground?” Marian asked.

 

“I don’t know,” Sue admitted. “But this book has several houses and other buildings like that. Maybe there used to be houses like that in this town? Maybe we can even find one.”

 

“Are you suggesting that we ditch school? Now?” Marian whispered.

 

“We won’t be missed until after lunch,” Sue pointed out. “Come on. Live a little.”

 

“Okay,” Marian agreed. “I’ve got a mystery of my own I need to solve, and I’m not going to solve it hanging around here.”

 

They slipped out of the school, driving off in Sue’s truck until they reached an old abandoned building near the edge of town.

 

“Maybe this place will have an underground room,” Sue suggested as she parked her pickup in the driveway.

 

Finding the main door locked, Marian and Sue slipped around back and spotted a hatchway leading into the cellar.

 

Marian tried it, expecting it to also be locked. To her relief, it was not. She climbed down into it, followed by Sue.

 

“Where’s that light coming from?” Sue asked.

 

Marian shrugged and went to see if she could find the source of the light.

 

Around the corner at the other end of the large room, they found a door with a small window. A small amount of light was coming from within. Next to it was a small square object the likes of which neither girl had seen before. It had a section on which a series of lines and colors pulsed and rotated. It was as if they were waiting for something.

 

Or somebody.

 

“Hello?” Marian tried.

 

Someone appeared on the screen. A man? No. Whoever, or whatever, it was the body stopped just shy of the torso.

 

“Thank Bryce someone’s finally come down-down-down here,” it remarked.

 

“Who’s Bryce? And more important, who are you?” Sue asked.

 

“Bryce was my maker,” the being explained. “As for me. I’m known as Max Headroom. N-n-now,” he narrowed his eyes as he looked at Marian. “Is your name Marian?”

 

“Yes,” Marian replied. “What is this box? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

 

“It’s called a television,” Max explained. “Wait you’re t-t-telling me there’s not tel-tel-television?”

 

“No,” Marian replied. “I mean, yes there isn’t any. So, what happened to Bryce?”

 

“He’s in the next room,” Max told her. “It’s not a pret-pret-pretty sight, though.”

 

Marian wondered what Max meant. The minute she entered the room, however, she knew.

  
  



	5. Chapter 5

###  Chapter Five:

 

Marian almost screamed.

 

The room was empty with the exception of a few boxes that were similar to Max’s. More televisions. At the opposite side there was a row of desks on which some of them sat.

 

Seated at one of these was the thing that had nearly brought a scream to Marian’s lips.

 

Hearing her friend gasp, Sue joined Marian a moment later.

 

“Oh my god,” she whispered in horror.

 

“Bryce,” Max’s voice was tinged with grief. “She’s here. Marian’s here.”

 

Bryce did not move, his body long dead. It sat there in the chair, the TV screen glowing before the unseeing eyes. A forest of crystals, needles, hollow columns, and radiating dendrites, protruded from his head, reaching out in every direction. They were pulsing very faintly.

 

Surely Max didn’t expect him to reply.

 

“Marian.”

 

The voice seemed to come not from the dead lips, but from the crystals. “I’m glad you came.”

 

“You’re alive,” Marian said in horror.

 

“No, I’m afraid not,” Bryce’s voice said from the crystals. “I was executed shortly after I got you to safety. A crystalline injection. But I was always very good at controlling my mind, so I programmed the crystals by redirecting some of the electrical impulses from my brain. I was able to leave a couple of messages for you including this one. To be triggered when Max spoke of your return. After this, however, it will be over for me.”

 

“Thank you for saving me,” Marian said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t return the favor.”

 

“You’ve inherited Max Headroom,” the voice told her. “He’s a good friend and very much like a son to me. Which, since I was your father for a year, I suppose makes him your half-brother. Your biological parents were Edison Carter and Theora Jones. They were a reporter and controller at Network 23. Edison was always searching for the truth and trying to make the world a better place. I was very happy to be a member of his team, even if I did pretend to be annoyed by it. The networks fell a year after you were born and they were both killed in the attacks. Zik Zak rose to its full power in the following year and opened brainwashing centers in an attempt to quell the competition. Had Edison still been alive, they might not have succeeded. But without the networks and Edison to keep the people alert, there was nothing to stop them.”

 


End file.
